Spare tires and/or spare tire and wheel assemblies can be mounted on the underside or inside of the vehicle or on the tail gate. This is done both for convenience and also for the sake of appearance. Specific to a tail gate mounting, a tire and wheel assembly is very heavy and has to be removed before opening the tail gate. Then, putting the tire and wheel assembly back on the tail gate is difficult for most people. Various approaches to the problem have not been particularly successful. It is possible to mount the tire and wheel assembly so that it can be swung to one side about a vertical axis, but this approach has certain drawbacks. For example, the weight of a post for establishing a vertical pivot axis can interfere with the normal opening of the tail gate.